Starting Out: Building a website for my Fitness Studio

Today, there are approximately 5.6 billion search queries each day. It’s not a surprise that having a well-designed website for your business is extremely integral. Stanford studies have shown that 75% of users form impressions of a company based on the website’s design. Not only that, having a website of your own could serve as a more cost-effective digital marketing strategy as well as a platform to consolidate important information. Below we compile for you what we believe to be the top three most important aspects to keep in mind when building your fitness website!

   1. Branding and Visual Representation

First impression of a website is as important as the first impression of a studio owner or instructor. The average user only spends an average of 7 seconds on the websites they visit, which is why the first look of your website is a decisive factor of your website’s traffic and performance. It is important that your website design aligns with the concept of your studio while at the same time looks neat and attractive.

One good example would be the website of Sculpt Hub Studio Hong Kong. As you can see, their website design color palette aligns with their logo which incorporates mainly black, red, & white. This alignment gives off a more harmonious synergy, while at the same time having only 3 main colors make it look neater and more focused. Other than that, they use actual class pictures on their website instead of low quality stock photographs. This would give their audience a better visualization of their activities and community.

   2. User-Friendliness

User-friendliness is not a foreign concept to many. Many institutions continuously revamp their platforms or websites to cater to the high demand of making it faster and easier to access anytime and anywhere. In recent years, accessing websites through mobile devices has become the mainstream. In fact, 85% of adults think that a company’s mobile website should be as good or better than their desktop website because of this. 

Automatically optimizing websites for all device types is now the default for many hosting platforms. 

When we are talking about the general user-friendliness though, it means speed and navigation. A good website should encourage clear and concise navigation, which is why almost all websites have their menu button on the top right side of the page. So when people first land on the home page, their eyes will subconsciously see those buttons. 

Last but not least, It is also important to test out the speed of your website. Studies have shown that 53% of website visitors will leave if the site takes more than three seconds to load. Many aspects could lead to slow loading pace. The most common reason would be the large volume of unoptimized pictures. Using scaled-down large images increases the size of your webpage, thus slowing the loading process. Do keep in mind to use image size recommended by the hosting provider.

The Daily Movement Singapore is one good example of a well-designed fitness website. It loads fast, is mobile-friendly, has clear navigation, and is well-designed. Their website has a meticulous navigation design. As you can see, they even included a scroll back to top button to make it easier for the audience.

   3. Content

Websites are built to deliver information. While most fitness websites are used to show the studio’s information and operation, some use it as a platform to post their members’ reviews, share success stories, blogs, and it is a great and indirect way to promote your studio. Posting these content could not only differentiate your websites from others, but it serves also as a customer retention strategy. It helps you build your members’ ownership toward the studio, hence translating it to a community of your own.

After building your website, do keep in mind that regular checking and iteration is highly necessary to keep your website secure and up-to-date. It might be difficult to design a website on your own without a programmer on the team, but now there are more hosting providers that provide beautifully designed, easy to edit templates. For example, WiX, SquareSpace, and GoDaddy have drag-and-drop interfaces which are dummy proof and easy to pick up.